Five Foolproof Quit Smoking Methods
Quitting smoking sure isn’t easy - after all, if it was, every smoker who wants to kick the habit would already be a successful non-smoker!
The important thing to remember with attempting to quit smoking is that it’s not about willpower alone. The key lies in changing your mindset and shifting your behaviours so you can transition into more positive habits.
Hypnosis provides us with a wide range of highly effective tools and techniques for breaking bad habits and adjusting our mindsets to accommodate new behaviours. In this article, I’m sharing five fabulous tips for quitting smoking that you can start to incorporate right away.
Ideas to Quit Smoking - Technique 1: Bring your full focus to your smoking habit
The thing with habits is that once they’re ingrained, we tend not to pay much attention to them at all. Take smoking - you probably don’t give much thought to the way you perform the action of smoking.
Well, for the next seven days, you’re going to bring your attention to your habit. First, watch yourself smoking in the mirror. Then, focus on the specific action of putting out your cigarette - try crushing it, stomping it or flicking it out.
As you do this, think about how you’re ‘putting out’ your smoking habit - and let your mind settle on the positive impact this will have on your life and your loved ones.
Ideas to Quit Smoking - Technique 2: Interrupt your smoking pattern
Sometimes, in order to break a habit, we first need to mess with the ingrained pattern it involves. I call this unleashing a path of pattern disruption - and for the next couple of weeks, you’re going to become a tyrant of pattern interruption!
Similar to the technique above, I want you to pay attention with extreme focus to your smoking and try techniques like the following:
Focus on the specific direction the smoke takes as it’s exhaled
Take a deep breath in between each drag
Smoke every third cigarette with your opposite (non-dominant) hand
Use a stopwatch to time how long it takes you to smoke a cigarette from start to finish
By bringing your attention to your smoking patterns and then disrupting these very patterns, you can begin to break free from the habit that’s got such a hold on you.
Ideas to Quit Smoking - Technique 3: Engage in positive habits around your smoking
Ok, so you’re not quite ready to go cold turkey and quit the cigarettes for good just yet. Don’t worry - these things take time and it’s important to go at your own pace.
For now, how about developing some positive and healthy habits that feed into your smoking and support you in your quitting journey?
Here are a couple of ideas:
Start buying your cigarettes a longer walk away from your home or workplace:
Seeing as you’re still buying cigarettes, changing your habit so you can incorporate some healthy exercise will help you begin to engage in more positive behaviours.
Try choosing a store that’s located a bit of a walk away from where you live or work, so you get some extra cardio each time you need to purchase your cigarettes.
Listen to ‘quit smoking’ meditations or hypnotherapy tracks:
Listening to meditations or hypnotherapy tracks focused on helping you quit smoking can be a game-changer when it comes to kicking the habit.
Many people find this type of content to be extremely effective at supporting them to cut down on their smoking and reframe the way they view their smoking behaviours.
The idea is that you’ll go from being a smoker to being a non-smoker who still smokes (NS-SS) - which is the first step on the path to becoming a fully-fledged non-smoker.
Looking for some fabulous quit smoking hypnotherapy tracks? Check out the FREE audio hypnosis tracks available on my website.
Ideas to Quit Smoking - Technique 4: Identify your habit swaps
One of the key ways to successfully quit smoking is to replace the negative habit - smoking cigarettes - with a healthier, more positive habit. By replacing rather than removing an action, it’s easier to adjust and ease into your transformation.
So, let’s start identifying your habit swaps - simple things that you can easily do 3-4 times per day instead of reaching for the smokes. For example, maybe you could drink a cup of herbal tea, snack on a small piece of dark chocolate, or go for a walk around the block.
Identify your habit swaps and start getting stuck into them right away.
Ideas to Quit Smoking - Technique 5: Celebrate your success
Quitting smoking is far from easy - and if you’re managing to make even the tiniest bit of progress, you should be incredibly proud of yourself.
Recognising and celebrating your success is an important part of keeping yourself motivated to stay focused on your ultimate goal of becoming a non-smoker.
So for this final technique, I simply want you to give yourself a big pat on the back and take a moment to congratulate yourself for how far you’ve come. By now, you’ve transformed yourself into a non-smoker who still smokes (NS-SS) - and are only a few steps away from putting this habit behind you for good.
And that deserves a celebration!